Brewers Claim Jesus Aguilar, Designate Ehire Adrianza

The Brewers have claimed first baseman Jesus Aguilar off waivers from the Indians, Milwaukee announced. Infielder Ehire Adrianza was designated for assignment to clear roster space.

In Aguilar, Milwaukee has acquired a 26-year-old power bat who has a track record of production in the upper minors. He has spent quite a bit of time at Triple-A, compiling a .271/.346/.472 slash across 1,647 plate appearances. That success hasn’t carried over to the majors, though Aguilar has received only 64 opportunities to bat at the game’s highest level. He’s out of options, though, after bouncing up and down over the past three seasons.

As for Adrianza, who was just claimed from the Giants and is also out of options, Brewers GM David Stearns notes that the organization hopes to keep him as a non-roster player if he clears waivers, as Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel tweets. The 27-year-old, a switch-hitting utility infielder, has slashed .220/.292/.313 in his 331 MLB plate appearances across the past four years. Adrianza previously inked a deal with San Francisco that would pay him $600K in the majors or $300K in the minors for the coming season.

Didn’t hit well vs, LHP at Columbus, so not a real great platoon option. Besides, they didn’t sign Thames to platoon him and Perez can play there too. Thames can play some OF though too. Brewers probably want to take a look just based on power potential. They really don’t have a spot for him.

Nice to have another option at 1B other than Thames, who is a complete unkown right now. As of now their backup options were Shaw, who will be mostly manning 3B and Perez who has only played 20 games there in his career and will be a super utility guy. May as well give him a shot as a fairly young guy who carries control til 2022. If nothing else it’d be nice to see someone with some pop come off the bench when needed instead of running out Kirk Nieuwenhuis all the time.

Thames isn’t a complete unknown. He ran through the minors and had time for 2yrs in MLB before Korea, where he made mechanical changes to his swing and tweaked his plate approach. Just because “professional projections” struggle to apply a slash line doesn’t mean the Brewers don’t have an idea of what he’s capable of. Thames and Shaw are locked down at the corners. Aguilar could be the backup 1b, power righty bat off bench, DH in interleague. Especially if the Brewers go with 5 backups (Pina, Perez, Kirk, Aguilar + Scooter if still on team). Or he ends up in AAA with Cooper. Or he’s DFA’d when Stearns finds someone else who he feels is an upgrade to the roster makeup

Thames is about as unknown as you can get for a guy who is going to be the Opening Day and every day starter. Until you see him against MLB pitching there is no way to tell how well the adjustments he made in the KBO are really going to translate. Obvioulsy he is expected to be somewhere between the terrible .250/.296/.439 line he put up in Toronto and the ridiculous .349/.457/.721 in the KBO, but there is no telling where on the spectrum it’s going to fall. Everyone knows that his power is real, the question is if he will make enough contact to put it on display. It’s not like he was ever a top prospect, he never even cracked to top 10 in the Jays system.

The Indians know him better than anybody. If they thought there was any chance at all he could provide consistent power, there is no way they would entertained signing Encarnacion. This is a team that does not typically make headlines with free agent signings. Yet shelled out the cash for Edwin with Aguilar right there for the position. This is clear evidence that he is at best a 4-A player. That and the fact they couldn’t even trade him for a bag of balls.